Greedy Goblin

Friday, August 5, 2016

Do I need a project at all?

I left EVE much later than I stopped enjoying it. I did so "for the blog" as blogging is very important to me. I actually turned down promotions when I realized that the blog wouldn't fit into my schedule anymore. I expected large part of my audience to disappear if I just quit EVE. The WoW to EVE transition was a whole year when I played both games, something I clearly don't have time now and still it took half of my audience. So despite logging in to EVE was a hated job since last August, I kept doing it until the citadel changes made it clear that devs are corrupted and I had to leave. It seems many people shared my opinion about the latest expansion:

What commentary can I add to this chart? "Bring on the wrecking machine! Let it burn! Let it burn! Let it burn!"

And what happened with my blog?

Thank you very much, better than ever since I left WoW. (Note: the chart starts at 2010, it doesn't contain the undergeared post that got me linked from all over the gaming media.) But how? The April peak can be explained by the quitting itself and the waves it caused on r/eve. But shouldn't it drop in May, June and July? To see what happened, let's see the top linked posts of the last 30 days, compared to "all time" (since 2010):

Despite they had only 30 days to get traffic, my BDO guides got pretty good numbers. And my main traffic source is the official forum. I got integrated into the "BDO community" pretty fast. The reason for that is the lack of such community. There are a few blogs, a pretty sterile r/blackdesertonline and the official forums. People want information about the game and they jumped on any source they could find.

Now to the point: these people came to my blog without me offering any project. I just blog moneymaking tips. Which is something people want. While I can conjure up a project, I doubt if it would help me delivering my message. People come for the information I provide, not to see my adventures. Maybe I made a fatal mistake with the GRR project. If I stayed as simply an information provider, I could be ignored by the space-politicians and their corrupted devs. But that's behind me. BDO on the other hand is very much ahead and I'm not sure if it would be beneficial to have a competitive project. If I start to run a siege guild I can actually lose audience as people would call my posts as propaganda lies.

While I don't rule out a future project, currently I see no reason to try to fix what's not broken.

I've read your blog for years. I kept reading when I quit EVE and still do even though Im not playing BDO. I read your blog not for information but for this:

"I play MMOs as simple simulators of economy and sometimes politics to show parallels between game mistakes and real world ones."

I think a project is the best way to find these parallels. But I also like your RL and Ideas posts. As long as I can find these values on your posts, Im gonna read, but if you will go full "information source" blog, because thats where the most views come from, you will be "just" an information site, and you have been much more for years.

I dont say a project is necessary, but it was a powerful method to not just show good gaming styles, but also learn from them, which knowledge surpassed the currently played game.

What you are seeing is most likely not due to the Citadel expansion backlash, but the usual summer dip. This drop in activity happens every year during juli-august. Maybe it's worse than previous years, I don't know, but you should definitely compare this year activity to previous years before you draw any hasty conclusions.

I think your long time readers are here for the variety of posts. We get to see your adventures on games we might not play, we get money making tips, real-life politics and economy posts etc. Plus you have a very straightforward way of writing, and you don't dance around topics people might find 'insensitive'.

To be honest I think a new project should be your reaction to something happening organically. If you stir things up simply for the sake of having a project, you will most likely induce ractions which would taint any interaction the community has with you from that point on. I think that was the mistake you did with EVE; you came on board strongly and too eager to prove your point, which turned everyone against you and eventually made you hate the game. It was interesting to read, for sure, but it's pointless if you can't derive any enjoyment out of it.

This happens because you actually post how to get rich in BDO. Guides may be incomplete, but they deliver the idea.For EVE aside from SP mining posts you didn't post much about gaining ISK. Posts currently marked "ISK" are pretty much useless at least for now and can't actually be called guides.Interesting thing is that you still can actually write those posts from offline and they will be read and will add up to your popularity and guestcount. Probably even convert some eve community to bdo as they'll read about bdo too.That "positive" direction you mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

You mentioned it yourself in the comments, the link to the "why" explanatory post.

Your permanent auditory is probably more interested in your "adventures" and thoughts, because they give something to think about and to tell others, including people not related to gaming.

If you stay as moneymaking tips blog, you'll get more visitors who want to make money. That alone won't help you popularize your views, be remembered or make a change.

Still that will help you increase your readers' numbers, even if those readers seem to be useless for your goals at first. Basically, you need information posts to lure in people, and meaningful posts to transmit your message. What are meaningful posts based on, is not important. It might be not a competitive project but something different. Preferable something visible and significant.

I didn't read most of your EVE project posts because it took too much time for me to process them it was all content that I could (or wasn't intereset in accessing) so I was becaming just a spectator of a very slow moving show that I didn't understand and so lost interest.

Your BDO posts are back to covering more accessible and relable content. If I think I can join a game using your posts as a guide then I more likely to read them.

Maybe your project could be to see if you theory apply to a wider range of game. A simple project across a number of games rather and a large complex project on a single game ?

While people have different reasons for reading your blog I would guess that I am not alone in mine. WoW is only game I have played among the ones you have blogged (WoW, WoT, EVE and BO) and I have been your avid reader for years.

I have never utilised the information you have given about the games (didn't have money problems in WoW since ~mid vanilla and wasn't really active past TBC and didn't play the rest). I read your blog for purely the intellectual insight.

I like how you find some inner workings of games (or associated meta things) and proceed to exploit them. You also use the scientific method to some extent, but the big part of what I like is that you show that the things you try work (or not) and have backing for the hypothesises you make. Often one just see "Dudes, I am streamer and hard core player and I know! Things are like X because of Y!"

I wouldn't really care what game you play as long as you find interesting things to test in the environment and I would keep reading your blog.